Eclipses and Heroes

First off, yesterday (4/8) I was lucky enough to be able to take the day off work and drive the older kiddo up to Vergennes, VT to be in the path of totality. Lovely little farm town, old school Main Street, pleasant people, amazing astronomical event. as XKCD put it, a partial solar eclipse is cool; inside totality it feels like someone broke the sky. 

Camera Phone, but still not bad

The whole event got me thinking about the Heroes TV show, which was a big hit in its first season, got crippled by both the writers strike and the creators attempt to broaden out to tell new characters stories that the audience rebelled against for the truncated season 2, and then limped along for a bit after that. 

Obviously (and of course I would say this), V&V 2.1 is the perfect game system for this sort of thing because a) you can base it on players easily if you want that real everyperson gets powers sense, b) you it scales really well for the 'normal to athletic person with 1 super power' setting (which is why I use it for Legion of Super-Heroes), and c) the random power generation works well for the sense that the powers aren't matched to the personality. 

The show worked in the first season due to the puzzle tension of the overlapping precognitions - the time/space manipulator both seeing the immediate nuclear explosion in the future and traveling back to warn against the events after that, and the canvases of the precognitive painter giving a different lens on those events and other smaller ones - providing a way for the audience to anticipate scenes, and the parallel conspiracy adding yet more puzzle pieces for the audience.

Several aspects of the longer plot were clearly adjusted on the fly - Mrs. Patrelli going from a grieving embarrassment shoplifting to feel alive to a key part of the conspiracy makes no sense when you binge watch it but you kind of forget when it was on weekly. 

Note that I keep saying "audience" because the nature of following a dozen or so characters who only all get in the same place at the same time in the last episode means the audience always knows more about what's happening than the players do. That, combined with the precognitive flashes and larger conspiracy, make the also want to run this in some form of Gumshoe. Mutant City Blues wouldn't quite work because so much of the power rules are making the powers things that can be forensically analyzed - critical for a police procedural, not so much for this - but the basic Gumshoe mechanic would be very helpful. 

Of course, this is a springboard for trying to merge some of the helpful bits of Gumshoe into V&V for New Salem, since unravelling a conspiracy and investigating the opposition is a core part of the New Salem design. Anyway, the first season of Heroes is pretty solid. watch it if you have some time. 

Earth 10: Metaphors and Comic Books

There are a couple of other things about the characters that I want to touch on.

Metaphor

First is that each one of the characters as a metaphor – some aspect of American life that they embody. This is a narrative device more than anything else, but it takes the place of ‘alignment’ in the classic super hero universe. (Another way of replacing alignment is having each hero represent a certain part of a group psyche, but everyone being a metaphor is a bit bigger than that, and the JAA is a game of big things).

In case you’re wondering what I’m talking about here, the idea of the metaphor is “being a superhuman is like being X”, with X variable for the setting. In the X-Men books it went from being a mutant is like being a teenager’ to ‘being a mutant is like being a member of a minority’ to, the Bryan Singer movies, ‘being a mutant is like being gay’. The 1980’s Teen Titans books are an even better example, where being a super-hero was like being in a parent child relationship, and everyone had a different flavor of it: Cyborg’s scientist dad so wanted him to become an engineer that he literally turned his son into a machine; Raven is the ultimate child of an abusive father; each of the characters can be mapped on a particular parent/child dynamic.

In any event, in this game being a member of the JAA is like being an American (as it should be, otherwise they’re just the Justice Alliance). Vigilante embodies the reconstruction amendments: he has spent 150 years fighting for voting rights and equal protection under the law. It’s what he does, it’s who he is.

Firestorm is the question of integration: His fusion of an older, foreign born Asian cultural archetype with a younger, native born, barely tied to his parent’s culture epitomizes the struggle to keep the cultural identity while embracing the American experience.

The Question is the obsession with Conspiracy Theory: you can’t understand the 20^th century without understanding the nature of conspiracy theory, the need to find connections and deeper truths.

Aquaman is the spirit of exploration – as with Star Trek where the aliens were really about human problems Aquaman is exploring a whole other realm but the aliens are humans.

Jason is still noodling on Superman’s metaphor right now (he’s been a Populist, an Immigrant, the Secular Humanist Savior, a Reagan Democrat and various other things depending on when it was). Secular Humanist Savior may come back, or the spirit of compromise, or Generation X.

Comic Book Titles

The other idea I’m playing with here is what comics the hero is appearing in that aren’t the Justice Alliance. These sorts of team books have heroes who have their own books and those who don’t, where those who don’t get more screen time and subplots because this is the only place they’re showing up. This is why in the Avengers we spend so much time with the Wasp and Ant Man relationship, or the Vision Scarlet Witch Quicksilver Wonder Man dynamic. It’s not as visible in Morrison’s run on JLA where six of the seven core heroes have their own book or books, but it was very evident in the Silver Age were the Hawks, Elongated Man, Zatanna and Red Tornado kept their subplots confined to JLA.

To capture that vibe in this game, as well as to bring in some more narrative mechanical ideas, is that players have scene framing chips that let them pull away from the GM’s planned plot (yes, I’m old school enough to still have one of those) for subplot scenes with another character. Given that these mechanics are designed to produce single session games most times I want to be able to limit the number of subplots kicking around to avoid subplot kudzu, so there can’t be a ton of these.

My original idea was that if the player chose to have their character appear in one or more other books they got extra character points to build them but fewer subplot chips – they have more potential spotlight for planned scenes but less spotlight time for subplots. The problem is this runs counter to the pretty smooth hero point mechanic that I already have, where the more powerful characters become more tightly constrained by negative hero points. That makes scenario plotting a ton easier and I refuse to give it up.

Since it’s a general reality that some players love emotionally powerful subplots and some see them as either awkward or a distraction from play we’re going to build on that. The player decides how many books their hero is in every month, and that does two things: First, It broadens their rogues’ gallery: More books equals more bad guys (6 per book, 3 or so callbacks and 3 new), and more things for the GM to draw on or call back to. Having your villains show up as part of the plot increases your spotlight time almost by definition. Second, tt determines their subplot tokens.

If your hero ONLY appears in JAA you start with one initiating token and one joining token. You are allowed to play your initiating token and frame a scene that includes anyone who has joining tokens left to spend. If your hero also stars in their own title you have a joining token but not an initiating one, and can be part of one other character’s subplot. If your hero stars in 2 or more books a month he doesn’t have either, and can’t/won’t be pulled into subplots – he’s the guy who is so busy he is never hanging around the base

If there aren’t any heroes with initiating tokens remaining then either you have no subplots or two or more players can initiate simultaneously with their joining tokens, sharing the scene framing and having a quick interpersonal scene.

Since this is entirely player driven I’m not stating anything about the starting heroes – if you have a group of players who all love subplots then none of them have their own books and they look like the Detroit era JLA. If everyone wants just pulse pounding action with no subplots then everyone is in their own book or books and there are no initiating tokens and few joiners, which looks like Morrison era JLA. If it’s an even mix then you’re in the Silver Age team where we watch Red Tornado muse about his humanity to the Hawks who worry about losing their culture white Zatanna starts dating the recently widowed Flash. It all depends on what your table dynamic is like. 

Alternate Paths Towards Running a Girl Genius RPG

I’m trusting that if you’re reading this you’re marginally familiar with the Foglo’s award winning webcomic Girl Genius. (If you’re not, go here: http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/) While there is an official RPG adaptation on the way from Steve Jackson Games several years ago I had posited to my player group that I design and run and my own version. I gave them two different options, which I called Gaslamp Intrigue and Gaslamp Melodrama.

Gaslamp Intrigue is looking at the Girl Genius world at the higher level – the PCs are all Sparks of considerable power or potential and, like Agatha and co, are the heirs of the previous generation of Sparks who tried to remake the world. They might BE Agatha, Gilgamesh and Tarvek, be their peers or replace them in the narrative. For this style of game I would repurpose Erick Wujek’s masterful Amber Diceless Role Playing since through this lens there are a lot of similar elements. Bill, Barry, Klaus, etc. take the role of Corwin, Eric, Blaise etc. from Amber while the PCs have the role of their children. The PCs are all more powerful than normal men but stack up well against one another, and engage in their own politics as well as trying to unravel the politics and mysteries of their parents. The Amber rules even have lots of space for the sort of inter-character competitions and conflicting goals that typify parts of Girl Genius.

Gaslamp Melodrama is looking at the Girl Genius world at the personal level – the PCs are a powerful spark heiress and her allies helping her fulfill her destiny. Again they could be Agatha with Zeetha, Krosp and perhaps a couple of others. Some of those allies are close to the heiress in power, the rest are distinctly weaker but have skills she doesn’t, and she relies on them for advice and emotional stability. For this style of game I would repurpose C. J. Carella’s very solid Buffy the Vampire Slayer RPG. BtVS does a good job of balancing the PCs spotlight time and effectiveness even as it ignores the idea that everyone is balanced in power. The rules have a lot to do with generating and releasing the emotional tension and angst that propelled the TV show and have no shortage inside the Girl Genius webcomic.

The player group selected the Gaslamp Melodrama game, but then that campaign fell through due to player scheduling and life concerns. The idea went onto the back burner until 6 months ago when James Cambias (http://www.jamescambias.com/) and I decided to revive it as a game for him and me to alternate running for each other, our families and friends. We’ve had 4 sessions as of this writing. I’ll be laying out what I did for the first set of rules, how that played out during PC creation and the early games, and how I’m adjusting the rules set based on actual play experience. 

USS Carter 2

2: Series Bible

This is a common term from TV series – the Bible is the list of what the key ideas are and what has been established about the characters to date so that later writers won’t run afoul of what has come before. Here is what I produced for the players on this:

USS Carter 1

1: Analyze Source Material

Given that the new Star Trek movies have decided to basically ignore any canon I think it’s time for canon to fight back. The next month is dedicated to my Original Show style Star Trek campaign.

Universal Comics Movieverse 2

2: Design Conceptual Framework

My first point from Monday was that movie super heroes are much tighter in their allowed origin stories than the comics. Let’s look at a few ways to get to that point in your game.

First is that you don’t have to start from scratch. If you’re already running a super hero game you can stop it at a certain point, look over what you’ve done so far for commonalities and then rework everything around those. In some ways this is a big boon when we get to the Easter Egg issue, and a lot of the ideas below still apply (with some modification).

I think it’s more likely, however, that you will be starting from scratch and building a comic book continuity being fitted to movie-style logic from the get go. In this case you should think about two things: Power Metaphor and Shared Origin.

Universal Comics Movieverse 1

1: Analyze the Source Material

Saddening as it is I suppose I have to bow to reality and accept that comic books are less and less likely to be the primary vehicle for super-heroic adventures. The blockbuster movies that we had hoped for for so long have swallowed the comics whole and now much of the Marvel and DC heroes are much better known for their screen exploits than their page ones. (Plus as a child of the 70’s it’s been a long time since the big two publishers have produced something that strikes my fancy he way that the mid 70’s to late 80’s comics did – too much of it is decompressed and occasionally incomprehensible to me. Call me an old fuddy-duddy if you like.) Those movies, increasingly popular and no longer sneering at their source material, have become the way new gamers know the genre, and so I must turn my attention to adapting that to gaming.

Castle Mordha 1

It’s time to kick it Old School

1: Analyze the Source Material

After starting this blog I found James Maliszewski’s blog Grognardia, dedicated to Old School Roleplaying (OSR). OSR eschews a planned story in favor emergent narrative, mixed with “Gygaxian Naturalism”: i.e. in a reasonably well-designed world any sequence of actions by PCs usually produces an enjoyable play session. OSR gleefully ignores modern genre boundaries, drawing instead on pulp traditions where fantasy and SF weren’t just kissing cousins but incestuous lovers with a passel of kids: ancient astronauts leave behind robots, world- jumping wizards carry six guns, modern people find lost worlds aplenty and everything and the kitchen sink is tossed into the mix. While Old School RPGs uses the pulps it doesn’t emulate them: it is sui generis, drawing its wargaming roots, the pulps and thousands of hours of the gaming at the rosy fingered dawn of the hobby to make something unique.

Hufflepuff & Ravenclaw 1

Back in 1997 a British writer on the dole published a slim volume of fantasy, a coming of age tale set in a magical academy. The book broke little new ground but the author had a pleasing style and…

Oh, you’ve heard of it? In that case…

The Sorting Hat noticed your steadfastness or intellect and placed you with the Badgers or Ravens. While the foolhardy and power-hungry snipe away, Hufflepuff & Ravenclaw expand their educations against a backdrop of strange mysteries. Comb through Professor Binn's lectures for goblin treachery. Uncover the mirrored secrets of Professor Spout's greenhouses. Turn Professor Flitwick's charms against the entity stalking the library. Face the fangs of Professor Kettleburn's magical creatures. Feel the star-crossed passion of a centaur romance. Battle other schools in the cutthroat Q&A Witches' Bowl. Oh yes, and play Quidditch. All this and more awaits you at Hogwarts Academy of Witchcraft and Wizardry! (Griffindor & Slytherin need not apply.)

Heroes of the United Worlds 2

2: Design the campaign setting based on beats and themes

As discussed last time LSH plots are highly structured and rely a lot on mysteries.

Adventures have five parts: act 1 is stage setting/ introduction to the problem, acts 2-4 parts of gathering clues, failed attempts to solve the problem (which provide clues in themselves) or resolving sub problems. Finally the solution is found in act 5 and we have a quick denouement. The middle acts can be in sequence or happening concurrently with the large team split into smaller units. Defeated villains (when there are villains) are dragged off to the hoosegow and not seen again for some time.

If the middle acts provide clues the preferred method is to describe the clue in an oblique way. Then give the PCs, if necessary) rolls to see if they spot that it as significant to the mystery. 1960’s comics were big on “Brainaic 5 Spotted the Clue…DID YOU?” editorial boxes and this is the equivalent – a way to challenge the player and the character simultaneously (though if they don’t get it by act 5 you should allow rolls to piece it together).

LSH problems have absolutes– the villains have kryptonite, heightened senses that reveal invisible or shrunk people, gasses that force shape shifters back to normal form etc. – in them that force a specific correct answer. I don’t want to mimic, but adventure design should include lists of pre-designed defenses to block avenues that I want blocked, but if the players come up with something outside that they should be rewarded. Punching people is seldom a solution. If it were, the 21st c PCs would resolve the problem immediately.

Phase 2 adventures are identical but with an emotional B plot: the villain has a backstory with a hero, there’s tension between two PCs, or NPC issues unconnected with the A plot. The B plot melodramatic, a chance to look at our heroes’ psyches; it comes to a partial resolution at the session’s end. The other Phase 2 change is that villains escape or suffer mystery deaths.

In phase 3 we shake things up by braiding the plots. The core structure is unchanged but instead of the adventure being Plot 1 scene 1, P1S2, P1S3, P1S4 then P1S5 we have the session being P1S1, P1S2, P2S1, P1S3, P2S2. Still five parts, two plots moving. Next adventure is P3S1, P1S4, P2S3, P3S2, P1S5. We end the session with the conclusion of Plot 1, but plots 2 and 3 are in motion. Plot 4 will fill in the space emptied by Plot 1. In the fifth session this concludes with P4S4, P5S3, P4S5, P5S5 and then P5 S5 – this is a session with two plot conclusions and therefore a big wrap up. This might look complicated but you’re only ever maintaining 3 plots at once, and in a structured format.

For added spice there should continue to be a B plot bit of character melodrama in each session during phase 3. In fact, one of the plot/problems (I recommend either 2 or 3) could/should be an ongoing B plot that rises to sudden prominence. Maybe two of the heroes get engaged and married over the sessions, or tow start dating and then have a big break up, or one is facing disease or death could be involved in hunting for a cure. Neither one of those is villains or world shattering threats but they’re the sort of thread that works well for braided superhero stories.

Scenarios are designed by mixing one of the themes
1. Strength of character
2. Brains over Brawn
3. Personal shouldering of sacrifice
4. Loyalty to the team

Note that there isn’t a straight up ‘be willing to fight a really tough foe’ theme because that can be strength of character (I have to keep trying!) shouldering of sacrifice (I have to protect the team/those civilians!) or loyalty to the team (if I fail I will have let the others down!). Each carried a slightly different flavor in play that should influence the scenario design.

With the following tropes
1. Deception within team
2. Expulsion from the team
3. Threat from within team
4. Mystery of unknown superhuman
5. Facing people with your powers
6. Heroes imprisoned
7. Raider/Pirate invasion fleet
8. Giant/powerful monster attack
9. New, unique potentially returning villain
10-12: d8 roll twice on this chart, combine.

By heavens that looks like an adventure creation chart! And it is! Feel free to use it or not as you see fit. It’s what I’m using to design the scenarios that I’m working up below.

The United Worlds universe is as follows: in the mid-21st century humanity had several technological breakthroughs and took to space. They conquered short range hyperspace, mastered gravity and perfected terraforming, letting them make every hunk of rock larger than 1000 km diameter in the solar system into a habitable body with 1G, plus building a couple of Earth-Sized cities floating in the clouds of the gas giants. That’s Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Ceres,3 world sized cities on  Jupiter, 3 on Saturn, 2 on each on Uranus  & Nepture, Pluto, Eris, Haumea and Makemake, plus 16 moons = 35 human ‘worlds’.  (The Centurions HQ is on Ganymede since Jupiter and its moons are the 31st century’s social center.)

At some time in the 25th century hyperspace inexplicably collapsed. That stopped space travel, silenced the ansible network and froze all of the zero point energy generators that made the United Worlds viable. All major planets were able to scramble to archaic fusion power but the damage was catastrophic. It was 400 years before things had recovered enough for to re-open commerce. Things have improved, but humanity is nowhere near its pre-crash peak. In hyperspace only the ansible network is operational. (Note: light speed communication delays are a pain; keep the instant communication network!)

During those 400 years the populations of many worlds either had strange mutations occur or engaged in bio-engineering to survive, so that several worlds have shared powers. A few examples:

Everyone on Venus is able to quickly grow or shed durable body armor to survive in the planet’s still-acidic atmosphere. This makes them a little bit stronger and a lot tougher than Earthlings, and they act as workmen in dangerous environments across the United Worlds. One Venusian, Miss Chrysalis, is a founding Centurion, trying to use her power to protect others, not just herself.

Deimos, a moon of mars, was a scientific research community that happened to have several fusion power plants running when the hyperspace crash hit. They were able to continue on as the worlds around them collapsed. These days the children of Deimos are scientifically brilliant but disliked as moral pariahs on other worlds. One of their most brilliant youths is a founding Centurion as Demon Boy.

This should give you an idea. Of course there are also scientific formula and radiation accidents to give people powers as well, and inexplicable pre-crash items to be used by villains. One point: world is magic-free, even if the pre-crash tech is tech to the point of magic. While the LSH has magic, I want to stay SF.

Given that I’m limiting this to the solar system, there’s no FTL travel and I have any number of worlds where people have ‘alien’ powers I hope it’s clear that I don’t intend to have much by way of ‘aliens’. But that doesn’t mean I won’t have any!  In fact I have four alien species

First are the Europans, the native race of Jupiter’s watery moon. They look like a cross between sea turtles and dolphins, only discovered the outside world when humans bore though the surface ice and need life support and mobility enhancers to survive outside of water. They are a specific shout out to Tellus, one of my favorite Legionaries.

Next are the SSSixl, a gaseous race from outside the galaxy. Their ship crash landing into Uranus is what caused the hyperspace collapse, not that anyone knows that. They are able to insinuate themselves into organics to control them, and can adopt their shape and color to appear to be human (though they are still gasses). They are the go-to race for chaos-generating aliens.

Third up are the Frail Ones. These are actually time travelers from the 41st century who are barely extant in our time due to entropy levels. Still, they can hire agents, bootstrap technology via willing scientists, plot, scheme, and so on. The Frail Ones view the Centurions as a threat to their future. If the Centurions reach the 41st century they’ll be insanely powerful, but facing a system wide technology as magic threat.

Finally we have the space dragons. Giant freakin’ space dragons. They’re not terribly bright and their migratory patterns take them through the solar system once every 2500 years. While here they will disrupt space lanes. And on planets and consume things and otherwise make big dumb, invulnerable nuisances of themselves.

People familiar with the LSH will recognize at least some of these as being reskinned LSH threats, but they’re the sort we need to make the setting feel right.

Technology is high, certainly, but I also need to emphasize that thematically it is no match for smartly wielded super-powers. Raiders and pirates are carrying ray guns that won’t hurt Miss Chrysalis, and they have to be in their space pirate ships to stand a chance against the 21st century PCs. Heroes can still be overwhelmed if attacked en mass or by surprise of course, but the point is that there isn’t a way to mass produce super power equivalent devices, especially not of the 21st century PC levels. Any villain relying on a device (other than a pre-crash hypertech item) can expect it to be broken or run out of charges after it challenges the heroes for a little while.

So how do we build a system to do that? Well, actually we’re gonna do it twice!

Heroes of the United Worlds 1

The second campaign is a Legion of Super-Heroes pastiche containing a large team with heroes of varying power levels dealing with science-fiction style problems

1: analyze the source material for theme and beats

For those not familiar, the LSH started as a club of super-powered teenagers in the 30th century who take as their inspiration Superman and use their access to time travel technology to recruit the teenage Superboy (and later Supergirl). Superboy then repeatedly travels to the 30th century for adventures with his chums. The 30th century has plenty of threats in form of alien armies, pirates, evil geniuses and the like and it also has planet-wide populations with single powers. Cosmic Boy has magnetic powers because everyone on Brall has magnetic powers. That means there are a lot of people with powers: it turns out that when everyone is super, some people are HEROES.

The LSH first appeared in 1958. For many years it was a plot gimmick in Superboy or Supergirl stories until it got a regular gig in 1962. It continued an unbroken and well maintained continuity until 1989 when a new creative team took the book nowhere I wish to follow.

I find the LSH fascinating evidencef the transitions in comics. The original adventures are very 1950’s: high on whimsy, with a fusillade of ideas but stiff plots, centering on a problem that isn’t resolved until the 3rd or 4th attempt. To their credit these stories, outside the usual DC continuity, could have things change: heroes died, left the team, fell in love (or just necked). Even if they must remain best friends to keep it the DC style the relationships here were a foundation for the series.

Villains were a problem. In the first 30+ appearances there are only 3 named, returning villains (three Legion of Supervillains members) two of whom share powers with the founders! Otherwise it’s a cavalcade of shape-shifting/telepathic aliens to impersonate/mind control Legion members so the team can fight itself, play tricks on itself or accuse one another. In the 30th through 60th appearances we do see three more big villains but usually the style required that everything be wrapped up every issue. The team just couldn’t get a rogue’s gallery going.

This doesn’t indicate a lack of creativity, as the Legion gained new members and had Legion rejects who either turned into Substitute Heroes, became that issue’s villain or vanished to be picked up in later years. The vibe was super powered people are plentiful but few are menaces. Threats were large groups such as pirates, raiders or spies, or as non-human alien races trying neutralize the LSH. It was a world of technological peace under threat from aliens and raiders.

Then came the Jim Shooter era: the 14 year old comic book wunderkind wrote LSH during high school, left for a while and came back for more, churning out brilliant ideas: villains tumbled onto the page and Marvel style silver age plotting and melodrama took over the book. The alien threats became fleshed out – Khunds and Dominators and the Dark Circle rather than generic raiders, aliens and spies. Villains escaped and returned, plotted and planned. The romances and relationships became more real.

There’s a long period for which I don’t have issues, as I entered LSH fandom in the Paul Levitz era. Levitz freely admitted that he was bad at making up villains, but he had 22 years of LSH history and he mined it like crazy. He found new ways to use old threats and kept relationships center stage. Levitz braided his plots, so that a subplot appearing in issue #1 is completely resolved in a climactic fashion in issue 35 – during that arc a “masked mystery Legionnaire” plot starts in issue 14 and resolves in issue 27, and during _those_ fourteen issues there are seven other major threats or plotlines, two of which tie back to the 35 issue subplot. Levitz wasn’t ‘writing for the trades’, he was writing for the long haul.

Structurally the LSH is ‘just’ a club but it’s a highly with a variety of by-laws to force people out. Some of these are obvious super-hero stuff – Legionaries can’t kill anyone – but others are there to enforce the exclusivity – each member must have one unique power (waived for the Kryptonians), powers can’t rely on devices, powers must be reliable and under control. Finally there are the rules that are clearly plot devices (Legionnaires can’t be married, they can’t level false accusations against team members and a myriad of others) that fuel plots where someone is kicked out of the club for reasons noble or nefarious.

Power wise members of the LSH fall into three tiers: the big guns (Superboy, Supergirl, Mon-el, Ultra Boy) with the Flight / Invulnerability / Strength / Speed / Vision powers paradigm, people with single powers that are potent or versatile (Lightning Lad, Cosmic Boy, Saturn Girl, Sun Boy, etc.) who make up the core of the team and people with powers that aren’t immediately powerful (Triplicate Girl, Bouncing Boy, Matter-Eater-Lad, Shrinking Violet, etc.) but who always show heroism and prove their worth. “Strength of character is more important than strength of power” is a big theme.

Other repeated themes use of deception rather than force, the personal shouldering of sacrifice (especially to save loved ones) and loyalty to the team.  The book also had regular tropes:  Deception within team, Expulsion from the team, Threat from within team, Mystery of unknown superhuman, Facing people with your powers, Heroes imprisoned Raider/Pirate invasion fleet,  Giant/powerful monster attack and finally New or returning villain.

These get mixed and matched to for a variety of plots. The LSH’s first appearance is a combination of deception and strength of character as Superboy is tested to see if he can join the club founded in his honor – he fails only to learn that the LSH rigged the tests and the real test was of his character. (The LSH does this so often you might think they’re jerks, but I guess it’s acceptable in the 30th century.)  There’s a surprising number of methods for internal threats: deceptions on other enemies, tricks to test new members, Red Kryptonite affected members, people suffering from amnesia/hypnosis or a villain joining the club to force it to disband. If a hero learns teammates are in future danger it is expected they will try to take that fate themself or to trick teammates into avoiding the threat (possibly via expulsion).

Later periods have new themes. Specifically, the LSH becomes a power unto itself in the United Planets. As such there’s a strong ‘responsibility of power’, a moderate ‘returning threats’ and a small ‘goals and leadership conflicts’ (leaders are sometimes glued to the monitor board playing logistics and worrying about the troops in the field). The shift to interwoven plotting means that we also have personal subplot arising and resolving constantly through this period.

In order to catch the right vibe here’s what I have in mind:

The first round of PCs are 21st century people pulled through time into the 31st century. While they are ordinary in the present they are super human in the future since their bodies have 1000 years less entropy. (Yes, this is ludicrous.) All gain the classic Strength, Invulnerability, High-Speed Flight combination plus a unique power.  The PCs are much surprised by this turn of events.

Members future teen-age super-hero organization, the Centurions, developed this time ray to snag the great heroes of the 21st century to help hold back a pirate fleet. The PCs are fortunately now powerful enough to fulfill the role. Once they finish the time ray wears off and they’re back in the 21st century until the next time the wavelength returns them to the future. These PCs fill the LSH’s Big Guns roles.

The erratic time ray also means that some 21stC PCs can be in the future while others remain behind. The players can create secondary PCs as Weak or Core level Centurions. I’ll create 5 Core-Weak NPCs as the Centurion’s founders, players can make up one Core and Weak centurion each so each player has 3 PCs. In the early episodic phases I’ll give an adventure teaser and let players choose which Pcs are on the mission; I’ll include one of my Founder NPCs to have a GM mouthpiece to explain backstory. As the campaign goes on it switches to an interwoven style with 2-3 plots running at once – players can decide on the fly which of their PCs are in which plots.

I am hoping that many of the player-PCs will phase out in favor of the more differentiated future heroes. Having the similar initial heroes lets the older players guide the younger ones on genre rules and the like and then for the people who like rolling up new PCs to enjoy that aspect while people who like sticking with a single hero can do that as well, though this might lead to a loss of spotlight time in the interwoven campaign as they don’t have Pcs to join some plots.

I’m looking at three distinct phases to an 10 session campaign.

Phase 1: three sessions of two short adventures each. The threats in these adventures are ‘human’ raiders or pirates or thieves, reversed or trick playing team members or alien shape shifters/mind controllers. These episodes all have to include at least one of the 21st century player-PCs and can be spaced far apart time wise to get the feel that the solar system is seldom in crisis.

Phase 2: the Solar System is suddenly always in crisis. This is one-two sessions of super villains either lone, in groups or teamed up with established raiders. Again these are long sessions so I intend to do two ‘plots’ per post, though some of them will be two-parters.  These episodes don’t have to have any 21st century PCs – the 31st century group is established enough to handle things on their own.

Phase 3: five sessions that are two to three plots each, but designed so that two different strands of threats converge into one big endgame in the 10th session. Again there need not be any of the 21st century heroes there, but the team will likely need the firepower at the end.

What to expect for the next month: I’m not designing a set of game mechanics for this one. There are multiple super hero games on the market with their own strengths and weaknesses. I’ll be using lightly modified version of V&V for this myself, and will work out how modifications to DC Heroes RPG/Mayfair Exponential Game System. Next post  is working out the genre rules for mysteries, rotating casts, variable power levels and other things, then two posts of mechanics options and then go on to 10 posts of adventures. There will be some weeks with bonus posts outside the regular MWF structure.

Feel free to stick around.

A Distant Inheritance 1

I recently reread the Hobbit, and that got me thinking about running a game with that sort of tone and concept. So let’s go about building it.

1: analyze the source material for theme and beats

There are several layers to the Hobbit that I’d have to replicate.

First it is a solid quest adventure. A company of heroes starts in a safe place and travels dangers lands to face a powerful foe for a vast reward. The design of this is helpful because it is, in game terms, a self-imposed railroad: if the players are in this campaign it’s because they want to get to that end goal, so you don’t have to worry about them haring off in some other direction. This makes it very easy to do the external plot as any encounters or locations are things to be dealt with on the way to the adventure, not things that will permanently pull them off track. The adventure’s goal need to have emotional resonance so some if not most of the PCs and also provide a large enough financial incentive that no other reward would tempt them. Finally, it isn’t a ‘plot coupon’ quest – the PCs don’t have to collect a series of items to succeed in the quest. They start with everything they need (the map and key) but they have to learn more about those tools along their quest from major NPCs.

Second it is sort of Bildungsroman in which at least one of the heroes learns that there is more to themselves then they have had cause to explore. Bilbo is obviously the focus of the book (which is why it’s not called “Thorin & Company”) and during his adventures we watch him become a more capable, confident person. If the game is going to feel like the Hobbit we need at least one PC on that sort of an arc. It’s possible, if not likely, that this PC is also the ‘New Jersey’ which is helpful in keeping that arc from dominating spotlight time, since the other PCs are more knowledgeable.

Third, the Hobbit has a clear hierarchy of skill importance: it is better to be sneaky and clever than good in a fight. It is better to be educated and travelled than to be sneaky and clever. Gandalf is powerful not because of his magic (which is highly limited in a traditional RPG sense) but because of his knowledge and connections – he knows the Trolls weaknesses, knows the ways through the goblin caves, is friends with the king of the eagles, knows how to approach Beorn – all of which prove more useful than the ability to fight. Bilbo is useful because can sneak, because he can come up with clever plans, and because he’s able to avoid capture with the first long enough to make use of the second. Thorin is a skilled warrior but those skills only serve him twice – escaping the goblin caves and in the battle of the five armies – while perhaps his best moment is the social conflict where he extracts help from the Master of the Lake Folk. Unlike many other fantasy settings fighting is tertiary in the Hobbit, so the system should be designed to reflect this.

Fourth, and I think this is final, is that the book has a strong theme of Inheritance. The goal of the quest is Thorin’s inheritance of the gold of his grandfather; he never stops letting you know whose son he is and why it matters, which he’s able to parley into the aforementioned social victory with the Lake Folk. Bilbo is driven into this adventure by the blood of his Tookish side, of being the child of a line of Hobbit adventurers. Bard of the Lake Men is a descendent of the old lords of the Dale and as such has their ability to speak to birds, his greater than normal courage and eventually their recovered throne. Unlike more meritocratic settings of farmboys becoming lords by their skill at arms in the Hobbit you are who you came from. It’s in the blood, even if you don’t know it.

So any system design we do will have to be tailored with that in mind. On to the pacing of the book.

The pacing of the book is cozy. Our heroes go on six months’ worth of journeying through very dangerous territory and have a minimal number of encounters. The beat pattern is as follows.

1: Character introduction and exposition (probably the PC creation session)

2: Some travel over moderately difficult lands.

3: An encounter in which all the PCs save the educated & travelled one are captured, and the educated one has to rescue them (trolls).

4: a rest and time for research of the goal and more exposition, made possible by the educated PC (Rivendell)

5: some travel over difficult lands (up the mountains)

6: An encounter in which all the PCs save the educated & travelled one are captured, and the educated one has to rescue them (the goblins).

7: the educated PC and the tough PC fight their way out, the sneaky character is separated and comes up with a sneaky and clever exit for himself. (Gollum)

8: some travel over difficult lands (down the mountain).

9: An encounter in which all the PCs are captured, and a deus ex machina has to rescue them; the educated PC is able to parley this into more assistance (treed by the worgs and rescued by the eagles).

10: a rest and time for research of the goal and more exposition, made possible by the educated PC

11: some travel over difficult lands with several obstacles (inside mirkwood with the sleeping stream, the lack of supplies and the elf courts) mostly overcome via learning from prior exposition.

12: An encounter in which all the PCs save the sneaky one are captured, and the sneaky one has to rescue them (spiders).

13: An encounter in which all the PCs save the sneaky one are captured (captured by wood elves).

14: The sneaky one has to rescue them, and learns things while so doing (wood elves).

15: Some travel over difficult lands (downriver in the barrels).

16: A rest and time for research of the goal and more exposition, made possible by the tough PC based on his inheritance (lake town).

17: Some travel over difficult lands with several obstacles overcome via prior exposition.

18: First encounter with the monster at the end of the quest by the sneaky person.

19: Second encounter with the monster at the end of the quest; PCs nearly die, saved by plans of the sneaky PC.

20: quest takes sudden turn when someone else kills monster. Things shift to a social conflict and an impasse, which is broken by clever PC.

21 Great big fight where tough PC leads the charge and sacrifices self for the good of all. Even still the outcome of final battle determined by deus ex machina twice over (the eagles and Beorn).

22: Dénouement and return home.

When you look at this for patters you get the following,

1: Exposition/Travel/Encounter/Escape (unexpected party to trolls)

2: Exposition/Travel/Encounter/Escape (Rivendell to escaping goblins)

3: Fight-Sneak/Travel/Encounter/Escape (riddles in the dark to eagle rescue)

4: Exposition/Travel/Encounter/Fight (Beorn to spiders)

5: Encounter/Exposition/Escape/Travel (wood elves to barrel riding – Bilbo solo)

6: Exposition/Travel/Encounter/Encounter (Lake town to Smaug tearing apart mountain)

7: Offscreen fight/Social combat/Battle/Endgame (Bard kills Smaug to end of book)

This can be done as seven short sessions (or four if you have more time, a simple mechanic and a desire to see part seven extended out for the big fight). It also shows a lot of escapes and very few fights, with some travel in every session, exposition in 5 of the 7 sessions and – of the encounters – escapes (outwitting the foe without fighting or just running like the dickens) being much more common than fights. For my purposes I’ll plot it as seven sessions, assuming 2-3 hours each.

Here are some takeaways I see

A: intelligent foes will capture their opponents to eat them later, pump them for information or enslave them, so losing a fight just means finding a time to escape. Spotlight time comes from being the one who avoided capture and gets to rescue the group.

B: fights only happen when there’s an unseen power imbalance between the sides or when some emotional or physical need drives it. If you are surrounded 5 to 1 wood elves, you surrender. If your company encounters a single giant spider, it flees. Individual foes (aside from the monster at the end of the quest) will not attack a group, but will attack a lone PC if it thinks it can overwhelm them. A group with a 2 to 1 advantage may attack the group based on circumstance, and the PCs may fight back rather than surrender.

C: educated PCs have to have some way of identifying relevant information from the background material, or being fed that information when needed, so as to serve the same critical role in the narrative. Gandalf doesn’t know everything (and he does make some mistakes) but he knows a lot.

D: evocative descriptions of travel are important, as are ways of conveying hardship and privation. The PCs lose more ponies than hit points; likewise we need a few powerful NPC stopping points which evoke a sense of wonder without the session turning into “here’s the GM’s favorite NPC”.

E: sneaking is important, so the stealth rules matter.

F: some sort of social conflict rules should be in place, but they should privilege inherited status as much as earned merit. There’s also some question as to how much social breadth they carry: Gandalf’s social status is so widespread that it works on everyone’s, Thorin’s is limited and sometimes as much a hindrance as a help and Bard ‘s opinions are honored in part because of who his ancestors were.